Contrastive analysis
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Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a pair of
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities. Historically it has been used to establish language genealogies.


Second language acquisition

Contrastive analysis was used extensively in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a method of explaining why some features of a target language were more difficult to acquire than others. According to the
behaviourist Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual ...
theories prevailing at the time, language learning was a question of
habit formation A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.
, and this could be reinforced or impeded by existing habits. Therefore, the difficulty in mastering certain structures in a
second language A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
(L2) depended on the difference between the learners' mother language (L1) and the language they were trying to learn.


History

The theoretical foundations for what became known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis were formulated in
Robert Lado Dr. Robert Lado (May 31, 1915, Tampa, Florida – December 11, 1995, Washington) was an American expert on modern linguistics. Early life His parents were Spanish immigrants who relocated to Spain before he had a chance to learn English. He re ...
's ''Linguistics Across Cultures'' (1957). In this book, Lado claimed that "those elements which are similar to he learner'snative language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult". While it was not a novel suggestion, Lado was the first to provide a comprehensive theoretical treatment and to suggest a systematic set of technical procedures for the contrastive study of languages. That involved describing the languages (using structuralist linguistics), comparing them and predicting learning difficulties. During the 1960s, there was a widespread enthusiasm with this technique, manifested in the contrastive descriptions of several European languages, many of which were sponsored by the
Center for Applied Linguistics The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1959 and headquartered in Washington, DC. Its mission is to promote language learning and cultural understanding. Its president and chief executive officer ...
in
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. It was expected that once the areas of potential difficulty had been mapped out through contrastive analysis, it would be possible to design language courses more efficiently. Contrastive analysis, along with behaviourism and
structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...
exerted a profound effect on SLA curriculum design and language teacher education, and provided the theoretical pillars of the
audio-lingual method The audio-lingual method, Army Method, or New Key,Wilfried Decoo,. ''Speech'' November 8, 2001. is a method used in teaching foreign languages. It is based on behaviorist theory, which postulates that certain traits of living things, and in this cas ...
.


Criticism and its response

In its strongest formulation, the contrastive analysis hypothesis claimed that all the errors made in learning the L2 could be attributed to 'interference' by the L1. However, this claim could not be sustained by empirical evidence that was accumulated in the mid- and late 1970s. It was soon pointed out that many errors predicted by Contrastive Analysis were inexplicably not observed in learners' language. Even more confusingly, some uniform errors were made by learners irrespective of their L1. It thus became clear that contrastive analysis could not predict all learning difficulties, but was certainly useful in the retrospective explanation of errors. In response to the above criticisms, a moderate version of the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) has developed which paradoxically contradicts Lado's original claim. The new CAH hypothesizes that the more different the L2 is with one's L1, the easier it is for one to learn the target language. The prediction is based on the premise that similarities in languages create confusion for learners. With the help of technological advancement, contrastive analysis has adopted a more efficient method in obtaining language data, a corpus-based approach, which generates vast amount of juxtapositions of language differences in various fields of linguistics, for example lexis and
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
.


Applications

There are multiple fields in the realms of linguistics to which Contrastive Analysis (CA) is applicable: *
Historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
, a former application of CA, which is subsumed under the name
comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...
, a branch in linguistics not to be confused with CA. * Second language teaching: Despite CA's limitation in the prediction of L2 learners' errors, it provides insights to at least some of the major mistakes that are frequently made by L2 learners irrespective of their L1. Hence, more tailor-made language design can be adopted; examples include awareness raising teaching method and hierarchical learning teaching curriculum. *
Second language learning Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning — otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific dis ...
: Awareness raising is the major contribution of CA in second language learning. This includes CA's abilities to explain observed errors and to outline the differences between two languages; upon language learners' realization of these aspects, they can work to adopt a viable way to learn instead of rote learning, and correct fossilized language errors. *
Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
,
psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
,
bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
,
pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
and others cultural-related areas: CA is, in itself, a cross-linguistic/cross-cultural study, and its ability to apply both linguistic and non-linguistic features is one of its major merits. This permits a better linguistic-cultural understanding, which is essential for learning a language in its entirety. *
Translation Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...
: CA provides better understanding of linguistic difference between two languages and therefore may be applied to the field of translation. Primarily, CA certainly lays a foundation for translation as it is integral that translators and interpreters have a thorough understanding of not only the languages they work between, but of the differences between them as well. Also, it might balance the
word-for-word In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal translation, literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from ...
vs. sense-for sense debate by developing strategies to overcome the linguistic hindrance. Moreover, it may avoid awkward translations such as translationese and
Europeanization Europeanisation (or Europeanization, see spelling differences) refers to a number of related phenomena and patterns of change: *The process in which a notionally non-European subject (be it a culture, a language, a city or a nation) adopts a number ...
. *
Language therapy Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
: Distinguishing the difference between language disorder patients from non-standard dialect speakers. This is essential in identifying speech pathology and their corresponding treatment. * Criminal investigation: CA research offers insight to subtle differences among languages. Language patterns can be used as clues to investigate criminal activities, for example analyzing
phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...
texts designed to deceive users into giving away confidential information.


See also

*
Comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...
*
Contrastive linguistics Contrastive linguistics is a practice-oriented linguistic approach that seeks to describe the differences and similarities between a pair of languages (hence it is occasionally called "''differential'' linguistics"). History While traditional ...
*
Pseudoscientific language comparison Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of pseudo-scholarship that aims at establishing historical associations between languages by naïve postulations of similarities between them. While comparative linguistics also studies the historic ...

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References

*Connor, Ulla M. (1996)
Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Ellis, R. 1994. ''The Study of Second Language Acquisition'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. * Lado, R. (1957). ''Linguistics across cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers''. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor. *Stern, H.H. 1983. ''Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. {{SLA topics Discourse analysis